We had hoped we might be lucky this fall and would get to see a few baby Snapping Turtles emerging from their nest sites at locations where we had seen adult Snapping Turtles laying their eggs in June, earlier this year. We had seen this occurrence a couple of times before but this year found only remnants of shells scattered about where the nests had been. At least three nest sites had been dug up and destroyed by some four legged creature.
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What follows is a description of what we had seen on October 1st, 2000, eight years ago. The pictures, which don`t show a lot of sharp details were taken with my first digital camera which had less than one megapixel, however I feel they are photos worth sharing.
Hello world!
October 1, 2008:" It looks like you got there at just the right time. Gritty looking bunch, aren't they? It had been so long that you were watching the nest I thought you must have missed your chance ."
Those comments which I had received from my son, after having sent him some of the pictures I had taken of twenty baby Snapping Turtles emerging from their nest reflected my thoughts also; for after having watched the nest site since the laying the eggs on JUNE 27, 2000; I too began to think that perhaps we had missed the hatching.
However on OCTOBER 1, 2000, I arrived at the nest site at exactly the right moment to see a baby Snapping Turtle emerge at 5:51 pm. My last picture was taken at 7:19 pm of turtles
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbj-E6RYoD6Dyc1LDSpa6PYku7QR_19g1e4dbAOstitLYzYpCM5IBm4S9_TW6tMItPXlogajpJ0wFnMqc96sYA_PdKM8lN2UsKltboS0Fz0vXCNXVg8fUjy-zAlr8EL7jT3eDt/s400/turtle_exittunnelmeasurement2000mvc-010f.jpg)
I didn't know what to expect but discovered that one hole of about 1 1/2" in diameter was the exit for all of the turtles. And as my son had commented, they certainly were a gritty looking bunch, as they were covered with sand as they came out of the hole.
As they dried off a bit in the late afternoon sun the details of the shell could be detected, and the distinctive serrated edge at its shell back could be easily observed.
Our vigil ended as darkness approached and the last two baby snapping turtles slowly made their way over the embankment that the female turtle had climbed in June to reach the nest location where she had laid the eggs. This certainly was a unique experience that we were so very fortunate to have observed.
Wonderful to see! There was a great video going around on Facebook recently of hundreds of turtles coming out from the nest in the sand on a beach down south somewhere. It was so amazing to watch them covered in sand and heading straight for the water.
ReplyDeleteIt really is a unique and amazing experience, thanks for sharing those little cuties--I hope they have survived.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a cool sight to see. The hatchlings are so cute! Thanks for sharing!
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